For our first test, we wanted to compare performance numbers between Windows Vista and Windows 7. Our Windows Vista configuration is using Vista Ultimate Edition x64 SP1, whereas our Windows 7 configuration is using Windows 7 Release Candidate x64 (build 7100). Our hard drive of choice is Western Digital's 10,000 RPM Raptor 74 GB, still considered one the faster platter-based SATA hard disk on the market today. Here's how the two operating systems stack up.


Traditional hard drives don't see much of a performance boost with Windows 7, as our tests show. Both read and write speeds are about the same for our Raptor drive, although burst transfer rates see a slight performance boost on Windows 7. Fair enough, let's move on to something more exciting, SSDs.



